<p>Hi. I am trying to decide between Cornell ECE, Berkeley EECS, and UIUC EE for undergrad education. Of course, Berkeley and UIUC are ranked higher in engineering, but Cornell is not far behind. Furthermore, Cornell is an Ivy. </p>
<p>I want to add that my ultimate goal is a Masters in Engineering.
So is it wise to choose Cornell for undergrad? How will the graduate admissions look at me coming from Cornell compared to students from Berkeley or UIUC?</p>
<p>Thank you</p>
<p>How much will each school cost you?</p>
<p>I think that whatever difference there is to an employer is very small, but since berkley is more pure science oriented, I would image cornell being looked at better slightly.</p>
<p>Celeritas, </p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. Berkeley and UIUC are both out-of-state, so they’re both expensive. Cornell, being a private, is about 8k/year more.</p>
<p>Cornell have one of the best architecture program in the world and although Cornell have great engineer program, it’s nowhere par with Berkeley in electrical engineer program and research. </p>
<p>Well getting into top graduate school for EE programs really depends on your undergrad GPA / well written SOP/ GRE / recommendation letters / research and work experience. If you have great stats from either of three schools you mentioned, you will get admission to top EE grad schools such as MIT, Stanford, Cal tech, and Berkeley. </p>
<p>if you are firm in your decision for ECE, go Berkeley. However, just because you go to berkeley doesn’t mean you will be able to get into top grad program. You will need to be roughly top 15% to be admit into its graduate school and other top EE grad program.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/915902-cornell-berkeley.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/915902-cornell-berkeley.html</a></p>
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<p>That doesn’t matter. No one cares in the technical world whether your school is an ivy. They care about its technical reputation, and more importantly, your work.</p>
<p>All three schools are exceptional. Berkeley and UIUC are definitely ranked higher, but not to the degree where it would be just dumb to go to Cornell. Cornell is an excellent engineering program and you won’t lose out by going there. If you feel like Cornell is where you belong, then I strongly urge you to go there. Grad schools won’t care which of the three you went to as long as your application is strong. You can’t get into grad school on the name of your school alone.</p>
<p>Honestly, in the case of three excellent schools like that, just break it down into which one you feel like you would be most comfortable attending. There is something to be said for being happy where you are, and being happier generally means performing better in school.</p>
<p>agree with bones, except for the situation whereby you change your mind about doing engineering.</p>
<p>then the choice would be:</p>
<ol>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
</ol>
<p>Something to note, Ithaca is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so if that’s an issue (it would be to me, that’s why I thought of it) then it’s something to consider when choosing a school.</p>
<p>If middle of nowhere bothers you, UIUC is out too. haha</p>
<p>Thanks for all of these replies! </p>
<p>How are the class sizes? I know that class sizes at Berkeley and UIUC are large for lower division courses, but how about their upper level major courses? I’m a transfer student so I will start from junior level classes.</p>
<p>As a transfer, I’d say Berkeley is a good choice, the UC system gets lots of transfers. Some schools don’t do a great job with transfers, and I’d expect Berkeley do at least do okay.</p>
<p>The “CE” part of ECE is stronger at Berkeley and UIUC than Cornell IMO. No good clue about the EE part though.</p>
<p>I’d pay close attention to geography. City vs. not city, Midwest vs. coasts, and distance from home. All are good schools, figure out where you will be happiest. That will be important. Cornell sees a lot of snow I think. Is that good or bad for you? Also look at housing costs, those might vary really widely.</p>
<p>“The “CE” part of ECE is stronger at Berkeley and UIUC than Cornell IMO. No good clue about the EE part though.”</p>
<p>Same with EE. USNews peer assessment (i.e. professors’ opinions) shows Berkeley at #2 with 4.9/5.0, Illinois at #4 with 4.7/5.0, and Cornell at #9 with 4.2/5.0.</p>
<p>And of course, the US News “rankings” are the only way to measure the strength of a program. Give me a break.</p>
<p>It ends up being that the deciding factors should rely on something other than academics, clearly all three will get you a very good education and very good opportunities. Finances as well as personal preference should now be considered as it is a pretty important part of going to college. If you’d like to be able to say you went to an ivy league, then that’s fine as well. It isn’t as if you’re about to make a bad choice, all three are great choices.</p>
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<p>What a clown. I merely state the peer assessment score and apparently I hit some nerve. Sigh.</p>
<p>UIUC is very expensive for out of state students. That is why I turned them down. Pick the school that is the best fit for you, and that includes finances. That may mean turning down the best schools I got into (major ECE) because of the high price of tuiton and a fear that I wouldn’t thrive at a large university.</p>
<p>Thanks all. I will try visit each school to see how I feel in different settings, and decide based on that. </p>
<p>@briangt: I also prefer smaller colleges. Unfortunately, UIUC and Berkeley are both big, and Cornell is one of the biggest privates as well lol</p>
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<p>Wrong, you made a definitive statement about the quality of programs which you based off of the rankings. You could just list the rankings and then you would have “merely state[d] the peer assessment score,” but since you started out by saying Berkeley had the better program and then listed them without qualification, it wasn’t just a mere list.</p>
<p>And sure I have a nerve that can be hit by that. I get tired of people on here (whether you intended to or not) citing the US News rankings like it is an objective, definitive measure of program quality. It happens a ton on here, and it is just simply wrong.</p>
<p>Boneh3ad is sensitive about someone who just blur out the ranking to compare school since he thinks his Texas A&M is the best engineer school and us news report don’t agree with him. Just ignore this clown gshine1989. I don’t really adhere to his post when I give advise to others in this forum.</p>
<p>CSmajor5: While boneh3ad might be slightly sensitive about his school (which of us aren’t?) he has IMHO given quite a bit of good advice in this forum. I think anyone seeking knowledge/advice/opinions about engineering would do themselves a disservice by discounting his advice just because of his loyalty to his own school.</p>